Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1887-03-25
WHAT PUBLIC EDUCATION Is DO.
ING FOR THE SOUTH.

necessity of supporting their public
school system. But as few OF item
are perhaps disposed to complain Of
the sacrifices that they are periodic
ally called upon to make to maintain
it At Its present high stapdard of efli-
cheney, it may be as we'll to relate here
and at this time, what the New South
the Old South Of pro-slavery times
is doing in this respect. This will
be deemed all the more remarkable
because of the entirely opposite
course hitherto pursued there. The
source from which we CLEAN our facts
is the March Century-than which
there is no higher authority on the
subject
The Southern States are now Civ
ing to the cause of public education
more than one-third of all the money
raised by taxation, aud Texas is Civ
ing more than one.half. The South
is giving to this cause to-day more
than twice as much as it gave FIVE
years ago, and FIVE times as much as
it gave in 1870. The South spent
during 1885 MORE THAN SEVENTEEN
MILLION DOLLARS for education; ten
millions of it went to the public
schools, which had an attendance OF
ovef three million pupils. A single
State will serve as an index of the
great advance made ip the matter of
public education in the South in the
last few years. In 1859 North Caro-
lima gave nothing to its public schools;
in 1870 it gave $4,000; in 1882,
$4,000; in 1885, ss5O,OOO. al
Doubt" says DR.. Mayo, an eminent
Northern man who has travelled ex-
tensively through the South; ''if the
history Of the world presents an in
stance. of greater efforts, sacrifices and
expenditures for education under cir.
oumstances SO discouraging as in the
South during the period under con-
sideration." 1t is thus seen that the
white man of the South has been Civ
ing to the cause Of education far
more out OF his poverty since the war
than he ever gave out Of his wealth
in the days Of slavery.
The undoubtedly excellent results
OF this devotion to the cause of public
education are already manifest in the
moral, industrial and social improve.
ment Of the former slave holding
States. The new South began prop
erly at the close OF the first decade
after the war, in 1875, and during the
last ten years such marvellous ad-
vance has been made in the South as
has rarely been made in any country
or in any part of any country in an
equally limited period in the history
of the world. A few facts will dem
onstrate this.
The South raises so per cent. more
cotton to day than it ever did before
the war, and raises it on a smaller
number of acres. Yet cotton is no
longer King in the South. Before
the war cotton was almost its only
source Of revenue, whereas a hundred
new industries are now bringing un-
told millions Of dollars annually into
the South.
The las: reported tobacco crop
yielded the South thirty three million
dollars, which is certainly three or
four times as much as before the war.
Tho statistics for corn and oats
show that the South, as compared with
the North and West, raises its pro,
portion of the former and more than
its proportion OF the latter, while the
showing for wheat is not unfavorable.
1t is also beginning to raise its own
hay.
But it is in the development, of
manufactures of various kinds that
the South has grown most rapidly and
extensively. The decrease of manu-.
features in New England and their
relative increase in the South fore
token thst at no distant day the South
will be recognized as the manufacture.
ing region of the Union. In 1880
there were $50 cotton mills IN the
South; in 1885 there were nearly
double that number.
Ten years ago tho iron mines of
North Alabama could have been
bought for $4,000; to day they could
not be bought for s5O,O00,0OO. Nor
Is Tennessee much behind Alabama